Slouching towards Camelot
by Fourth Rose
Summary: "It doesn't mean you're not Sir Galahad." Even the strongest resolve takes a knock when one loses one's partner. Episode tag for "Yanks in the UK".


**A/N: This is an episode tag for "Yanks in the UK" that has been nagging at the back of my brain for a long time, until the Bones Love Month over at the LJ comm bones_ga finally gave me chance to do something with it. I know this episode is not a fan favorite, but I've loved it since I first watched it. **

**The dynamic between Booth and Inspector Pritchard just seemed too interesting not to explore it, so that's what I'm doing here (please consider yourself warned if you don't like to read about Booth with a woman who isn't Brennan). Still, in the end all things 'Bones' are about B/B for me, and this ficlet is definitely no exception, so I can only ask my fellow shippers to bear with me :-)**

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><p>He isn't sure why he offered to drive her home – perhaps it's that lost look on her face that reminds him a little of Bones when she doesn't want anyone to notice that something is getting to her. He knows he did the right thing when her expression softens a little, although she doesn't say another word during the whole ride.<p>

It's only when he opens the car door for her in front of her building that she opens her mouth. "Would you like to come in?"

The look that accompanies the question can't really be misinterpreted, and Booth hesitates, uncertain how to react. "Pritch…"

"Please." Her voice is soft, as is the hand on his arm, but her eyes are flat and somehow empty. "No strings, no expectations – I just… I can't…"

He looks at her and wonders again what he would do if it had been him who'd lost… before he can fully finish the thought, he's standing outside her apartment with her, and she gives him a tense little smile as she unlocks the door.

"Pritch, listen –"

But she just shakes her head once, sharply; the door falls shut behind him before he can get another word in, and her lips on his cut off the rest of his sentence, then make him forget what he was going to say altogether.

Booth manages to resist for another few seconds, but then her hands are on his belt buckle, and his body pretty much switches to autopilot. This is completely messed up, but damn, he's only human, and he hasn't been with a woman in what feels like forever. Bones would probably say something about biological urges now, but he shushes the voice in the back of his head that sounds so much like her and tries not to think at all.

They stumble towards the bedroom together, shedding clothes along the way. They're both mostly naked by the time they reach the bed, and she turns to open the nightstand drawer (providing him with a breathtaking view of her ass) and presses a condom into his hand before she lies back on the bed, her eyes never quite meeting his.

Booth manages to put on the condom with minimal fumbling (like riding a bike, he can't help thinking) and allows himself one good, long look at her before he follows her onto the bed. If things were different, he'd love to take his time with her gorgeous body, to run his hands over those breasts, to press his lips against that dark patch of curls and slowly let them wander lower, but that's not what he's here for – she doesn't want a lover, she wants him to fuck her into oblivion, and it's the only thing he can give her.

Yes, she's using him, because there can be no doubt that she's pretending he's someone else, but he can't help feeling that he's in no position to blame her for it. She's all over him, touching, urging, demanding, and Booth hopes she's getting what she needs out of this as he pushes into her after what feels like no time at all. She clings to him like he's the only thing preventing her from drowning, her taut body a stark contrast to the soft, silky warmth that surrounds him with every thrust. He knows what she expects of him, and he gives it to her, fast and harsh and so much rougher than it should be with a woman as willowy and graceful as her.

She's whispering something as she's getting close, and Booth buries his face in her hair and tries not to listen because even though he knows none of this is about him, he still doesn't want to hear a name that isn't his from the woman he's in bed with. Unbidden, the memory of Bones at his "funeral", her expression livid and her eyes dark with fury, rises in his mind, and Booth feels an irrational pang of guilt as if he were cheating on her somehow. He tries to push thoughts of Bones aside, but he's not fast enough to keep himself from wondering whether this is what _she_ did when she thought he was gone, whether she too took some meaningless stranger to bed so he could distract her from feeling the impact of losing her partner.

The idea makes him cringe at his own stupidity. The woman who didn't even cry at his funeral – she wouldn't do anything so irrational, she probably compartmentalized it all away just like Sweets knew she would, and she sure isn't thinking of him whenever she invites another loser into her bedroom.

Booth closes his eyes and tries to focus on nothing but the woman he's with, because she deserves at least that much, but he can't help it that just for a second, it's _her_ under him, her body moving with him in a frenzied rhythm, her nails digging into his shoulders and her breath hot against his skin. It's dangerous territory for his thoughts to stray into, doubly so while he's in bed with someone else, and he's immensely grateful when Pritch brings him back to the present as she starts clenching around him, because now he can let go too without facing the question whether it's the images in his mind that are pushing him over the edge.

Her gasp when she comes sounds almost like a sob, and he does his best to block it out and concentrate on nothing but his own orgasm because he hates the idea of a woman crying while he's inside her. She keeps her arms around him for just a moment right after, and for a second he thinks she's still going to cry, but she doesn't. She lets go of him instead, and Booth rolls off her with a mixture of relief and unease and stretches out next to her, determined to just catch his breath before he'll hopefully figure out a way to get out of this mess with as little awkwardness as possible.

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><p>The fading light of late evening is filtering through the windows when he opens his eyes again. Pritch is on her back, her eyes closed and her dark hair fanned out on the pillow, her breasts rising and falling with each breath. She doesn't stir when he slowly sits up, even though he doesn't believe for a second that she's asleep.<p>

He's not the kind of guy who takes off before the woman beside him wakes up, but he understands that she's trying to make this easier for both of them. What would he say to her anyway? Glad to have been of service, ma'am?

So he bends over her, gently kisses her on the forehead and whispers, "Take care, Pritch" into her hair; then he goes to pick up his clothes and get the hell out of Dodge.

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><p>"She likes you." Bones' grin is almost triumphant, and her sing-song tone makes her sound like a gleeful child.<p>

Booth barely keeps himself from wincing. "No."

"Yes!" She leans in and adds in a husky whisper, "And she's very sexual."

"Enough." God, did she really have to use that tone _now_? "It's just… stop."

She seems puzzled, but to his relief she drops the subject as they get ready to leave. They bicker about his "Australian" accent all the way out of the Oxford University Dining Hall, but once they're outside, Bones' smile fades. Instead, he's suddenly facing the curious look she always gets when she has thought something through and realizes that things don't add up.

"You didn't answer your phone when I called you yesterday evening."

Booth does his best to keep his expression neutral. "I told you I'd drive Inspector Pritchard home."

That look again. "Did you have intercourse with her?"

Under different circumstances, that would get a chuckle out of him – his Bones, never one to beat around the bush. As it is, he can only hold her gaze and hope he isn't blushing.

"I did." He wasn't planning to tell her, but he can't lie to her about this either. When she doesn't say anything, he adds, careful not to sound contrite, "Feel free to call me a hypocrite."

"I won't." She pauses too before she continues calmly, "I think I understand."

That takes him by surprise, and for a second, he's at a loss for words. He tries to read her expression, tries to see behind the meticulously schooled indifference, and he can't help remembering the fury that radiated off her when she socked him in the jaw at the cemetery, the shrill pitch in her voice when she yelled at him in his bathroom. He thinks of the horny little Brit – rest his soul – whom she snubbed for an evening of bickering by the riverside, and it hits him that there are different kinds of compartmentalizing as well as different kinds of grieving, and that he's an idiot for not realizing it sooner.

This is one of those moment when the "just partners" mantra he's been clinging to for years fails him completely and the memory of the taste of her mouth in the rain is so fresh in his mind that it makes his lips tingle.

"She kept calling me Ian throughout."

He doesn't add that he's pretty sure _he_ called her Bones.


End file.
